The Chase
by ShirouHokuto
Summary: A mysterious noise in the night sends Itachi and Shisui on a mission with unforeseeable consequences. Alternate timeline, gen, T for canon-typical violence and a little language.
1. sleight of hand: I

**Author's Note:** _Okay, the bad news is that I have totally been neglecting the AU to write this, which is not connected to the AU in any way. The good news is that the frenzied concentration paid off and this is complete! I'll be updating it on a regular and frequent basis until it's all posted - hope you enjoy the ride. :D Chapter titles from Radiohead's "Codex," because Radiohead songs are my Naruto jamz.  
_

* * *

**sleight of hand: I**

_Thump._

He woke at once, his hand on a kunai; the sound had been too loud and graceless to be one of the neighborhood's wandering cats. He waited, but there was no further sound. Perhaps it had been just a cat after all, or a noise in his dream that he had mistaken for a sound in reality because he'd been waking up already. What had he been dreaming about? He should remember - it had only been moments ago - but the dream was already shredding into incoherence. Some kind of monstrous armored skeleton, and lightning, and a snake - but it had all been so blurry that it was impossible to organize the images into a real narrative. It had only been a dream.

Another few minutes of quiet, and he began to relax back into sleep when something cracked. A creak and he rose, a faint rough, shuffling sound and his kunai was back in his hand. Someone was in the house, and if they made just one more noise, he could find them...

_Creak._

There, from one of the spare bedrooms. He slipped out of his room in perfect silence and moved through the dark halls till he reached the right room. He slid the door open carefully, staying in its shadow as moonlight shone through the gradually widening crack, but there were no new sounds; he took a cautious look around the edge of the door and saw no one, nothing that immediately struck him as out of place. The empty room smelled wrong, though. It should have smelled of dust, or at best a hint of the lemony cleaner his mother used; instead there was the sharp tang of lightning-struck air, the choking smell of charred cloth and ash, the metallic scent of -

He opened the door completely and saw dark smears on the floor.

For a moment he was perfectly still, even as something in him protested - _not here, not in my home_ - and then reflexively he checked the room's corners and blind spots before kneeling to look closer at the stains. The moon was full, but its light through the window was at the wrong angle and made it difficult to see the entire pattern of the stains clearly.

He was about to get up when the room's overhead light was switched on. "What are you doing?" his mother said, her voice thick with sleep. "I thought I heard someone making - wait," and her voice sharpened, fully awake. "Is that blood?"

"Yes," Itachi said.

* * *

Mikoto inspected the bloodstains while Itachi put away his kunai and checked the rest of the room. There was very little in it; an unmade bed, a small empty chest of drawers with some scratches on the top and a cracked handle on the middle drawer, and two slightly battered cardboard boxes filled with old baby clothes and toys that had never been thrown out or given away. None of it had been disturbed. He spent the most time on the room's single large window, activating his sharingan to make sure he had missed nothing.

"Well, here's the good news," Mikoto said, and Itachi turned away from the window to look at her. "There's not nearly enough blood here for any mortal wounds - it looks more like someone with a lot of little injuries decided this was the perfect place to collapse. See, it's mostly light patches with a very thin layer of actual blood, except here -" She pointed at a small, uneven puddle of blood next to one of the light smears. "- where I think our mystery guest's head was. A nosebleed, I would say, possibly from hitting the floor face-first. And here -" Her finger hovered just above a narrow streak a moderate distance away from the possible nosebleed. "- where there may have been a deeper cut, maybe to the side or upper chest. But no serious bleeding, so at least we're not worrying about a murder. Just why someone who'd taken a beating would decide to break into our house to take a minute's nap and then run off."

She sat back and smiled up at Itachi, pleased with her deductions, and another time Itachi might have smiled in return; at the moment he was too concerned with what he'd found around the window. "I'm not sure that they ran off," he said. "What exactly did you hear?"

"A thump," she said, "like one of the bigger cats jumped off something but louder, which would be our guest falling down - then a creak like someone opening the window, a dragging sound, and then another creak - hm." Her smile vanished. "The window's closed now."

"It appears to have been cracked open from the outside, then shut again," Itachi said. "There's no blood on the inner frame, but on the outside I found a small drop close to the broken latch."

"That was clumsy of them, wasn't it?" Mikoto stood up and stretched, then went to the window to see for herself. "And the sequence of sounds isn't right - somehow our guest collapsed in here _before_ they opened the window, and then someone with enough fresh blood on their hands to drip was kind enough to break in and pick them up... You can't flash-step through a wall, so it would have had to be some kind of teleportation, and that's not an everyday technique. This doesn't look good."

Itachi nodded, and bent down to look at the blood stains in the light. He could almost see the outline of a body in the pattern of bloody patches; an out-flung arm there, the impression of a scraped shoulder not far above it, what could have been the outline of bloody toes over there. Whoever they were, he could guess that they were close to his own height.

"- ought to get Shisui," his mother was saying, "and a good tracker, one of the Inuzuka -"

A loud banging came from the front door along with indistinct shouting and they both started, Itachi's kunai coming to his hand again; Mikoto put her hand on his head and said, "Let your father take care of it. Maybe someone's already found our mystery guest, and we can go back to bed."

Shisui's voice rose out of the crowd, calling for Itachi, and Itachi moved out from under his mother's hand and went towards the front door. There were four members of the police there with a civilian in bloody clothes, all talking loudly at Fugaku, but Shisui had elbowed his way past them and was running down the hall towards Itachi's room. He stopped dead when he saw Itachi. "Oh, good, you're up already," he said cheerfully, as if he hadn't been yelling like a panicked genin a moment ago. "Listen, it's awful - someone just broke into the bakery and killed the old man there and Aunt Uruchi, too. The police are on it already, but -"

"But nothing, Shisui-kun," Mikoto said from behind Itachi. "Jounin or not, you're still a junior officer, you don't need to get mixed up in a murder when we have another mystery for you."

Fugaku said something short and final-sounding to the officers at the door, then shut it and turned to face them. "We'll have to see," he said. "What are the two of you doing up, anyway?"

Mikoto told him about the noises and bloodstains while Shisui took Itachi's shoulders and steered him a short distance down the hall. "I don't know what's going on," he whispered, "but this is all suspicious as hell. Who'd go after a baker and his nice wife? They weren't even shinobi, they'd both retired years and years ago... And you had a break-in here too, sounds like."

Itachi nodded, thinking. Blood on the spare room's floor, but not on the window frame; the drop by the window's latch, as fresh as the blood inside. There was a connection.

"You two, come here," Fugaku said, and they obeyed at once. "Yashiro and Tekka are officially in charge of investigating the murder of Uruchi and Teyaki, but Itachi, I want you to look at the scene as well. Shisui, you've already seen it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. You'll look at the crime scene here, then I want you to meet with Itachi and Yashiro to discuss possible similarities and connections." Itachi's father ruined the sharpness of the order with a yawn, which he covered with a sleeve and then turned into a scowl. "Get a tracking specialist -"

"An Inuzuka," Mikoto said. "Don't give me that look, dear, you know they're the best. But does Itachi really need to be involved?"

"He discovered the scene here," said Fugaku. "And with two murders in the compound itself, the Hokage will want an ANBU member investigating with the police anyway; it might as well be Itachi. Get a tracker and investigate possible trails from here and from Teyaki's shop, and get radios from the supply department to keep in touch with each other." He frowned slightly. "I would hope that two prodigies such as yourselves won't need back-up, but keep an open channel just in case. We don't know who we're dealing with, and I don't want either of you taking foolish risks."

"Yes, sir," Shisui said, "I'll take care of Ita-chan, don't you worry -"

Without a shift in expression, Itachi elbowed Shisui sharply in the side. "We'll be careful," he said.

"And I will be, too," said Mikoto. "I couldn't sleep again even if I wanted to, I might as well go with -"

"Absolutely not," Fugaku snapped. "This is a matter for the police and ANBU, not a special jounin."

She sighed. "Fine, then I'll handle radio communications," she said. "And coordinate operations or anything else necessary, since you'll need to be at the office. What a night this is turning out to be... Wait, dear, did you check on -"

"Yes, yes, he's fine - sleeping soundly. Hasn't noticed a thing."

Itachi glanced out of a window and saw thin clouds stretch across the moon's face. He started to turn towards Shisui and his eyes suddenly snapped back to the window, blinking. The clouds were black with silver outlines, as they should have been, but for an instant, seen out of the corner of his eyes, the moonlit edges had appeared red. Almost as if -

(_the Dawn_)

- dawn were close, but it was nearly midnight; there was a long time to come before the sun rose.

"All right, let's get started," Shisui said, running a hand through his messy hair. "How long do you think you'll take, Itachi? Hey - Itachi?"

Itachi looked away from the shrouded moon with some effort. "Not long," he said. "I'll meet you back here in an hour with the tracker and Yashiro-san."


	2. sleight of hand: II

**sleight of hand: II**

Uchiha Yashiro had given Itachi a set of hastily-written notes and then gone home. "It's too late for me to go hunting," he had said, "but I'll join you in the morning if you haven't had any luck. Young eyes are better in the dark."

Itachi had accepted the excuse, but not without wondering at its motives. Then he had gone into the bakery to look at the crime scene with his own sharingan, read Yashiro's notes, and sent a junior officer to the Inuzuka family compound to ask for their best tracker to meet him outside the shop. Inuzuka Tsume was the tracker who appeared some time later with her dog Kuromaru. She nodded at Itachi once and went straight into the shop; Itachi waited outside with Tekka, who had come back to make a more thorough investigation of his own when Itachi and Tsume were finished, and they steered away the occasional gawker who had been attracted by the earlier commotion.

Tsume didn't take much longer to look at the scene than Itachi had; she came back out with Kuromaru and said, frowning, "Got a scent, but no trail, at least not from here - and not to here, either. It's like he showed up out of thin air and disappeared the same way."

"Difficult scent, too," said Kuromaru. "About all I can get out of it is 'male,' the rest is a mess. Something a little familiar about it, but I can't place what."

"Thank you," Itachi said, but his mind was occupied with his own impressions of the crime scene. Aunt Uruchi and Uncle Teyaki's bodies had been in the hall of the small apartment above the shop, outside a small room that might once have been a bedroom but was currently being used for storing boxes of non-perishable baking supplies. Several boxes had been dented or crushed; Uruchi and Teyaki's throats had been sliced wide open, likely with a kunai. Their blood had drenched the wall and floor, shining darkly in the moonlight, and the reek of it, familiar and terrible -

"Hey, kid, concentrate!" Tsume waved her hand in front of Itachi's face. "You said there was another scene? Maybe we can pick up a trail from there, there's nothing here."

"Yes, sorry," Itachi said. "This way, please - Tekka-san, can you make sure that the scene isn't disturbed?"

Tekka agreed, and Itachi led Tsume back to his house, where Mikoto and Shisui were waiting in the spare room with the radios. A few minutes of dedicated canine and Inuzuka investigation later, Tsume said, "Got it! Same scent as the bakery, plus a new one - whoever left the blood on the floor."

"That one's easier than the other," Kuromaru said with a fanged grin. "Male, mid-teens, injured but not too badly, a bit singed, low on chakra. There's a lot of other little smells mixed in, too, so I'd say this one at least was fresh from the end of a fight."

"Oh dear." Mikoto sighed and crouched by the bloodstains again to take another look. "And it's been so peaceful lately..."

"Eh, peace never lasts," Tsume said, shrugging. "I'm going to check outside for a trail, whoever's tagging along better get ready to move out - Mikoto, you go find a spot with good radio reception."

Itachi was still in his sleeping clothes; his ANBU armor was at headquarters, but he had his forehead protector and some old light mesh armor in his room that he put on along with his regular clothes and his usual armory of kunai, shuriken, short sword, and other tools. He meant to change quickly, but something was making him clumsy, shuriken slipping out of his fingers, fastenings refusing to close properly, a bitter frustrated taste filling his mouth.

When he was dressed he went outside and around the house to the window of the spare room to meet Shisui and Tsume. Shisui had already been in his police uniform and hadn't needed to change, but Kuromaru had vanished from Tsume's side; after a few moments he bounded down from the roof of the house next door. "Good solid trail," he announced, "least at first - could get tricky later, they're headed for the forest and the wall. Got about an hour's lead on us, I'd say, but I don't think they're moving very fast."

"Then we should go quickly," Itachi said. He was preparing to jump up to the roofs when Tsume grabbed his shoulder.

"What's the deal, kid?" she said. "Bad idea to rush when you're following an enemy trail, and it's not like they'd get past the wall without a fight, anyway. If we don't catch 'em, someone else will."

Itachi couldn't explain his need to hurry; it was simply there, tensing the muscles in his arms and legs, jangling in his nerves, whispering (_find them find them find them_) in the back of his mind.

Shisui came to his rescue. "He's just worried about the hurt one," he said, giving Itachi a light head-rub. "That's our Itachi, you know - always a soft touch. All he wants is to get the poor guy into a bed with some nice soup and bandages, right, Itachi?"

Tsume snorted, but didn't argue with him. "Turn your radios on and let's go," she said. "But don't rush. I have a feeling this ain't gonna be an easy trail."

* * *

In spite of Tsume's intuition, it was an easy trail to follow at first, at least for an Inuzuka's nose and two pairs of sharingan. It went straight over the roofs towards the south-eastern wall, not the most direct route, but one which avoided the Hyuuga clan's stronghold; Tsume and Kuromaru took care to double-check the scent trail with physical traces, pausing frequently to do so. Each time they stopped, Itachi's restlessness grew, until at the edge of the woods between the outer road and the wall Shisui pulled him aside while Tsume and Kuromaru went a short distance ahead. "You have got to relax a little, Itachi," he said quietly. "You're starting to put Kuromaru and Tsume-san on edge, and I don't really want to be out here with a nervy Inuzuka and her gigantic dog, okay? And it's not like you."

"I'm sorry. It's only -" But he couldn't explain it to Shisui, either, the facts of the case that were so straightforward and so completely senseless and kept running across his mind, the way the moon's light would refract into bloody edges in his peripheral vision, the nerves digging into his bones and crying _hurry, hurry, hurry_. There was no reason for him to be so tense and anxious about a simple case, and his inability to express it only made the anxiety worse. He hadn't felt so wordless since - for a long time. Years.

(The war.)

"I don't know," Itachi said at last. "Something isn't right here."

"Yeah, I get that. Don't tell the chief, but I'm kind of glad we're taking it slow. At least your little shadow's not here to get in the way, right?"

The radio in Itachi's ear crackled. "Itachi, if you don't feel up to it -"

"I can handle it, Mother," Itachi said, glaring at Shisui, who had hidden his grin too late. "We haven't even caught them yet. We'll report if there's trouble."

"It's okay, Mikoto-san," said Shisui, "I'll take care of your precious - ow! - never mind, I think he's going to have to take care of _me_ and my new broken ribs."

"Shisui-kun, would you please take this seriously for -"

"Hey, you two, get your asses up here! We found something."

What Tsume and Kuromaru had found was the aftermath of a small explosion in the undergrowth: shreds of paper, charred branches, the fading scent of burnt leaves and smoke. "Lucky it's the rainy season," Tsume said, "or half the woods could have gone up. Not that whoever started it cared, I think, there's a couple other signs of a fight, so I'm guessing these two aren't exactly friends. Bad news is that the trail splits here - the injured kid's still headed for the wall, the mystery man seems to have headed back into Konoha." Kuromaru paced around the radius of the explosion before padding back to her, and she reached up to scratch behind his ears absently. "So, you two are the big detectives. What do you wanna do, split up or leave the one for the wall patrols and go after the other one?"

"Don't even think about splitting up," Mikoto said over the radio. "I've seen that recipe for disaster happen too many times to count."

"Yeah, in horror movies." Tsume rolled her eyes. "Either of you ever see me getting like this about _my_ brat, you aim to kill, got it? So, plan?"

"We'll split up," said Itachi. "Tsume-san will accompany me to find the wounded one, and Kuromaru will track the murderer with Shisui, since his trail will be more difficult to follow."

"Smart," Tsume said approvingly. "I see why they made you a captain. Okay, Kuromaru, play nice and go get 'em."

Shisui hesitated. "You sure about this?"

Itachi nodded, and Shisui shrugged and said, "All right, then, just remember the radio if you need a hand and keep your sharingan on."

"We're the ones going after an injured teenager with low chakra," Itachi said. "I think that we'll be fine. Take care."

They didn't start on their chosen trail until Kuromaru and Shisui were gone. Tsume and Itachi both wanted to make a closer inspection of the setting before moving on, in hopes of discovering more about either of the strangers. Itachi collected the shreds of paper, enough to be the remains of two exploding tags; Tsume found a scorched tree that should have been out of the range of the tags and sliced branches that could have been the work of a sword. "So, definitely shinobi or knows enough to use our equipment," Tsume said, "and at least one of them knows fire techniques."

"And lightning techniques," Itachi said, thinking of the electrified air in the spare room.

"Kumogakure, maybe?" Tsume frowned. "They'd do anything for a sharingan or byakugan, the assholes, remember what happened with the Hyuuga heir a few years ago... Could've been trying to sneak in and grab a kid but messed it up."

It didn't sound right to Itachi; as a plan it was sloppy and risky, and it wouldn't explain the apparent falling-out between the two men or the one's injuries. He shook his head and said, "Let's find at least one of them before we come to any conclusions."

"Fine, fine, just trying to be prepared. Anything else you want to look at or can we go?"

"That's all, I -"

He was looking past Tsume and his sharingan caught the motion of thread dangling from a bush. His mouth was suddenly too dry to answer Tsume's sharp "What?"; he went past her without speaking and pulled the threads from the thin branches. It was difficult to discern colors in the shadowy dark of the forest even with the sharingan, but he knew the exact shade of lavender the threads would be in the daylight.

He didn't know why that realization froze him in place, staring numbly at the threads as his heart beat too hard against his ribs.

"Hey! Are you done yet?" Tsume snatched the threads out of his hand and sniffed at them. "Yeah, these have the right scent, so let's get a move on already - you were the one raring to go earlier, weren't you? You get cold feet or something?"

"Yes," he said. "No. Let's go."


	3. sleight of hand: III

**sleight of hand: III**

The trail continued towards the wall at first, weaving a little but mostly direct; as it approached the wall it became more erratic, veering away from the wall entirely only to loop around and run parallel to it, curving towards the outer roads and then wobbling deeper into the woods. "This kid's tough, whoever he is," Tsume said after a particularly long detour around a training ground. "I thought for sure we'd have found him in a heap by now."

"Shisui," Itachi said into his radio, "have you had any luck yet?"

"Not yet, this bastard's got a hell of a weird trail," Shisui said. "It keeps disappearing so we have to circle around and find it again, and sadly he's not leaving any more handy drops of blood for us to follow while he takes a grand tour of the village. So far we've stopped by police HQ, the academy, the hot springs, a library, the hospital, a ramen place, and now it looks like we're headed to the top of the Hokage monument... Thanks for giving me the worst part of this job, you rotten little creep."

"Shisui-kun!"

"Just having a little fun, Mikoto-san, sorry."

"Well, stop having fun and take this _seriously_," she said. "Two people are dead because of the man you're chasing, this is no time to joke around."

"I am taking it seriously, I promise, I was only -"

Tsume rolled her eyes and put her hand over her radio. "You lot yap like this on every mission?"

"Only Shisui," Itachi said.

"Heh, there's a funny man on every team," Tsume said. "Law of the world, seems like." She sniffed the air, then uncovered her radio and said, "Keep the chatter down, everyone, I think we're getting close to our target - trail's getting fresher and we don't want to spook him."

"Okay, total silence from me unless it's an emergency, promise," Shisui said, and the radios went quiet.

Tsume took the lead again, although the trail was becoming sloppier and more than clear enough for Itachi to read; they kept their pace slow, taking care to move without noise. They were getting close to the main gate of the village and Itachi was wondering if they might reach the gate and find that the guards had caught their target when Tsume stopped and held up a hand, then stepped back to Itachi's side. "Dead ahead, just out of hearing range," she whispered, "and stopped moving for now. Normally I'd say flank and grab, but we don't know that this one's done anything, so act nice and see what he does?"

Itachi nodded. "I'll go first. Kuromaru said he was in his teens, correct? He might be less alarmed to see someone his own age."

"You mean someone who's not a wild Inuzuka," she said, and her grin had a fang in it. "Better hope he hasn't heard of _you_, then."

Itachi didn't bother to reply; the nerves that had been temporarily calmed by Shisui's banter were clawing at his mind again, _hurry, hurry, hurry_, senseless and urgent. The undergrowth was thinning out as they went on, and more of the moon's light filtered through the trees. Ahead of Itachi and Tsume there was an especially large, thick-trunked tree with some space around it; Tsume tapped Itachi's shoulder and made the hand signs for _on the other side, still alone_. Itachi nodded, stepped out of the undergrowth's scanty cover, and saw half of a foot in a shinobi sandal around the curve of the tree's trunk.

The air disappeared.

A hoarse and horribly liquid cough ripped out of him as he folded over the tearing pain in his lungs, then another, and another, and another. He could barely hear the sudden, startled movement of their target, Tsume cursing, his mother and Shisui shouting over each other on the radio; Tsume grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him, snarling, "What the fuck, kid! If you're sick, you stay the hell at home, you don't go running around on a hunt making noises and scaring off your prey! What the hell are you playing at, huh?"

He couldn't answer her. He couldn't _breathe_. He coughed and coughed and coughed on all fours in the dead leaves, his lungs seizing and cramping, and Tsume pounded him on the back, the tone of her voice changing. "Hey, hey! You all right?"

"Itachi, I'm letting Kuromaru take the trail and I'll be there in -"

"No," Itachi wheezed, "no, I can -" Another hacking cough interrupted him, but it was weaker than the last. "Stay there - it's getting better -"

"You should come home right now," Mikoto said, "you can't possibly track in that condition. What happened? Was there a trap?"

"Don't think so, air's clean and I'm fine," said Tsume. "Look, kid, you should have said you were sick and I could've grabbed Hana or someone to fill in your place."

"I'm not sick - I wasn't sick." Itachi took slow, shallow breaths, but the coughing fit seemed to be over. He sat up and wiped his mouth, then checked his hand and was relieved not to see blood smeared there; after that first cough he had half-expected it. "I don't know what happened just now, but I wouldn't have risked compromising the mission if I weren't fit for duty."

"I wouldn't have let him go, either," Mikoto said firmly. "Itachi, are you _sure_ you're all right?"

"Yes."

Tsume frowned at him. "You don't smell sick, true," she said. "But shit, that was some bad timing. No, don't get up, we might as well break here for a minute and make sure that's not gonna happen again - give the target some time to calm down, too."

"But he -"

"He's not going far, trust me." Tsume pushed Itachi back down into the leaves and sat next to him. "His chakra's still so low it's a wonder he's moving at all. We'll get him soon, just take it easy and get your breath back."

Itachi wanted to be on the move again immediately, but he could see the sense in Tsume's words. They sat together quietly for about five minutes before a hiss of static and Shisui's voice came over Itachi's radio. "Guys, good news! We have a visual on our target - he's standing in front of the memorial stone and reading the names."

"Tell Kuromaru he's a damn good boy," Tsume said. "Any identifying marks? Can you get a look at his face?"

A brief silence. "No, he's wearing a mask. Maybe ANBU from another village? It's sure not one of ours. And he's got a long black coat with some kind of cloud pattern, nothing I've seen before. We're not close enough to get a really good look, and Kuromaru says his scent's still confused, but definitely familiar. I think we'll have to approach him and see if we can get anything that way."

"Don't," Itachi said, his voice unexpectedly sharp and high - from the coughing, surely. He wasn't afraid; that would be ridiculous. "If he suspects you at all -"

"Hey, I'll play it cool," Shisui said with an audible grin. "I can just turn off the sharingan and say I'm an Inuzuka out for a stroll - I mean, I have the hair for it."

Tsume laughed. "The guts, too," she said. "Good luck, we'd better hit the trail again ourselves."

"Be careful," Itachi said, "and stay out of the river."

"Uh - sure. I can swim, though, you know."

"I know." Itachi rubbed his temples. He didn't know why he had said that last part; the section of the river that ran through the memorial stone training grounds was clear and slow, hardly a hazard for a jounin police officer like Shisui. "Still, be careful."

"Yes, Mom, now we need to go before our mystery man takes off for somewhere else."

The radio cut out, and Tsume stood and pulled Itachi up with her. "Time for us to go, too," she said, "if you're up to it."

"I am."

They had gone only a short distance when the radio erupted with howling that stopped Tsume cold. "Kuromaru!"

"Shisui, report!"

Fiery hissing, and then Shisui shouted, "Big trouble, he recognized me and he's hostile -" A wild burst of static interrupted. "- sharingan, in one eye at least! I need -" Another burst of static and the radio went dead.

"Shisui?" Itachi said. "Shisui, answer me! Shisui! Shisui, that's an order, tell me what's happening!"

"Itachi, he can't answer you," said Mikoto, "the signal's gone. Someone needs to get over there _now_ and you two are closer than I am."

"I'm going," Tsume said.

"No, it's Shisui, I need to -"

(_Shisui with empty bloodied eye sockets, holding out something in a red-stained hand; Shisui's body in the river, sodden uniform and corpse-pale skin_)

"- I have to -"

"Kuromaru's my partner and we'll make a better team," Tsume said harshly. "Get your ass on that trail and find the other one and your mom can keep you updated, I'm going!"

She disappeared and Itachi nearly went after her, then stopped himself. She was right; an Inuzuka partnered with her dog would make more difference than a second pair of sharingan (_but you have the strongest, stronger than anyone besides -_), and he didn't need her help to follow the trail any longer. He breathed in deeply, breathed out, and listened to the radio channel. He heard Tsume yell "You two, come with me!" at someone and distant barking, Tsume cursing, Tsume growling, and then earsplitting feedback and silence and after a minute, his mother's voice: "Her signal's gone. Whoever that man is, he's going for their radios first."

Itachi looked up at the moon, barely visible through the leaves, and saw a veil of dull red clouds. "You were right," he said. "We shouldn't have split up."

"I'm always right. That's a mother's job," she said, but gently. "It's not your fault, Itachi - you can't be everywhere, and I'm sure they'll be fine. You should have a little faith in other people sometimes."

Itachi didn't answer her, and she sighed. "Don't forget your mission. There's someone who probably needs your help at the end of that trail, remember?"

"I haven't forgotten," Itachi said. "Please - if you can, send back-up to -"

"Oh, teach Grandmother Cat how to catch mice, I did that the minute Shisui said he was going to talk to the target. Back to work and no more stalling, young man."

"Yes, Mother."

Itachi took another deep breath and returned to the trail of the injured stranger. He had made it all of two meters when he heard a branch crack behind him and drew his short sword, switching his radio off and fading into the shadow of a tree. Anyone foolish enough to follow him would -

"Crap," a familiar voice muttered. "Niisan? Hey, Niisan? Where'd you go?"

Of all people...

Itachi sheathed the sword, stepped back into the moonlight, and said, "Shouldn't you be in bed, Naruto-kun?"

* * *

Naruto was still in his pajamas; he hadn't even thought to grab his practice weapons from the academy before deciding to sneak out after Itachi, Tsume, and Shisui. "I heard something was goin' on," he explained, "so I wanted to see, yanno? It sounded super exciting!"

Itachi wanted to ask how he had followed them without Tsume noticing, but with the amount of dirt and leaves Naruto was covered in, he thought he could hazard a guess. Instead he said, "You shouldn't be here. This is a dangerous mission, do you understand? Two people have been killed, and Shisui -"

(_face-down in the river with his eyes torn out_)

"Yeah, I heard you guys yelling," Naruto said, oblivious to Itachi's sudden silence. "I know it's serious, but c'mon, I'm gonna graduate in like a year, I can totally help! And that loud dog lady left you on your own, you gotta have a partner, yanno, just in case this other guy's dangerous too."

Itachi sighed. Naruto was likely to be useless when it came to tracking or fighting, but his presence might at least calm the worst of Itachi's inexplicable anxiety, if only because Itachi would have to concentrate on keeping him out of trouble. "All right," he said, "but you have to listen to me, do you understand? This is a real mission, not a practice one from the academy, and as an ANBU captain I'm the one in command."

"Sure, totally, whatever you say!"

"Then can you be completely silent?"

"Yeah, absolutely!"

Itachi simply looked at him, and Naruto's wide grin faded a little. "Uh - well, probably," he said, in a slightly lower voice. "I mean, I'll try really hard?"

That was probably the best Itachi could hope for. "Then stay quiet and follow me," he said. "And if I signal you to stop, then stop and stay hidden until I tell you it's safe to come out."

"Got it! Um, got it." Naruto bounced in place a little. "Can we go already?"

It took Itachi a moment to pick up the trail again - it had veered back towards the wall - and then they could continue, going at the slowest pace yet to compensate for Naruto's less-developed ability to move through a forest in silence. Itachi left his radio off for the moment; it was, he was almost certain, the wrong decision, but his mother would be furious when she realized that he had let Naruto tag along with him on a mission, and he didn't have the heart to send Naruto back to face her wrath just yet. There would be time enough for that when they had caught up with their target.

Ten minutes later Itachi made the hand signal for _stop_, then had to stop Naruto physically with a hand on his shoulder. "Huh?" Naruto said. "Are we there -"

Itachi put his other hand over Naruto's mouth and nodded. "Stay here and don't move," he said, as quietly as possible. "Keep out of sight. I'll come back for you once I have the situation under control - yes, I know you want to help, but not right now." He took his hand off Naruto's shoulder to turn the radio back on, paused, then took it off and gave it to Naruto. "If something goes wrong, you can use this to call my mother. But only if you're certain there's a problem. Can you do that?"

Naruto made a muffled but quiet noise of agreement, and Itachi removed his hand from Naruto's mouth. "But I wanna -"

"No."

When he was sure that Naruto would actually stay put, Itachi left him behind. Itachi didn't have Tsume's keen nose or well-developed tracking intuition, but the smell of blood was getting strong enough that he was surprised Naruto hadn't picked up on it; the target couldn't possibly be far ahead of him.

The woods were thickest near the wall, to slow invaders down, but the trail staggered away from the wall again towards an area where the trees had thinned out, and at the base of one Itachi saw the target. He was shirtless, wearing dark pants and a rope-like belt, and he had huddled down among the tree's roots, the moonlight reducing him to black shadows and white skin; there were dark patches of drying blood on his back, and his dark hair stuck up at odd angles in the back but hung in long bangs over his lowered face.

Itachi waited a moment, but his breathing remained easy this time and his jangling nerves had finally quieted, the urgency fading away. Keeping silent and out of the target's line of sight, he moved closer, released his sharingan, and was considering the best way to address the target - he had never been good at seeming reassuring or unthreatening; that was one of Shisui's specialties - when the stranger said, without moving, "Well, what are you waiting for? Come and get them."

"I'm not after anything you have," Itachi said, taking care that his voice was level and pleasant. "I'm here to find out what's been going on and see if you need help. Are you a citizen of Konoha? Can you give me your -"

"Is this a trick?" The stranger lifted his head, staring at Itachi with black and hollow eyes. "Is this just some kind of _game_ to you, you bastard?"

"Of course not," Itachi said; he took a step closer and crouched down in hopes that he would seem less threatening. "I apologize if you thought we were hostile, but we only want to ask you a few questions. I can take you to the hospital first if you would like, and if you need asylum, I'm sure that can be arranged once we know the full story."

"If I need - if you were -" The stranger's shoulders slumped, then shook with thin and humorless laughter. "The _hospital_!"

"Yes, if -"

With his sharingan off Itachi could barely see the stranger's left hand dart into the shadows like a snake, and he leaped back just as the katana slashed through the air where he had been a moment before.

The stranger struggled to his feet, holding the sword out in front of him; despite the stranger's shaking legs, the sword was perfectly steady. "You aren't getting me that easily," he snarled. "I'm not falling for any more of your illusions, not again. Stay _away_!"

"I think you might have mistaken me for someone else," Itachi said, keeping his distance and holding his hands out to show they were empty. "My name is Uchiha Itachi, and I -"

The stranger screamed and hurled himself at Itachi, striking wildly. Itachi dodged easily and caught the stranger's left wrist -

(_twist_)

(_snap_)

(_the dying voices of a thousand birds_)

- forcing it up and tightening his grip until the stranger's hand opened and released the sword's hilt. When the stranger tried to claw at Itachi's face with his free hand Itachi caught it, too; he held the stranger far enough away that he couldn't attempt to kick Itachi's feet out from under him and, trying to keep a cool, professional tone, said, "Could you please calm down? I'm trying to help you."

"Help me?" The stranger's voice cracked, and his attempts to yank his hands free were weakening. "You want me to calm down? You want to _help_ me? I've had all I can take of your help, _Niisan_, and you still won, so just stop playing this stupid fucking game and do what -"

"What did you call me?"

"Did you go completely blind? You bastard, can't you even recognize your own little brother when I'm right in front of you?"

Itachi didn't have a little brother.


	4. codex

**codex**

Itachi had almost had a little brother, once.

The Third Shinobi War had just ended, and Itachi hadn't spoken out loud since his first battle. Even Shisui, his beloved cousin, couldn't get him to smile or laugh or protest at being called childish nicknames. He washed his hands more often than necessary (but not too often, or the gritty blood he could feel on his skin would become blood he could see), and his father was disappointed in him. "The Hatake boy made chuunin at his age," Itachi once overheard his father saying to another police officer, "or close enough, and now he's stolen a sharingan and become a war hero - why can't Itachi just -"

Itachi had stopped overhearing and gone away at that point to wash his hands again. He didn't know why he couldn't just, either. He didn't know what he should say about the war, so he didn't say anything about anything else, either.

The war only ended for Itachi when his mother told him to put his hand on her stomach; he had gotten just tall enough to reach without standing on his toes. "Can you sense the new chakra yet, Itachi?" she said. He nodded, and she smiled down at him. "That's going to be your little brother - or a little sister, the doctors can't tell yet, but I think it's going to be a little brother for you. Won't that be wonderful, to have a baby brother of your own?"

"Yes," he said, marveling at the faint, fragile new chakra system resting in his mother's stomach, and Mother stroked his hair and said that he was such a good child. He washed his hands less after that, if still a little too often, and Shisui could sometimes surprise him into a fleeting smile.

But something went wrong a few weeks later, and Mother had to go to the hospital. When she came back there was no new chakra in her stomach any more, and she had dark bags under her eyes. Father stopped complaining about Itachi and stayed home some days instead of working, or left work early to help clean the house and sometimes cook; for months Mother would cry often, at anything, and hug Itachi sometimes as if he were still a baby instead of a five-year-old war veteran.

During practice Shisui asked Itachi if he was sorry he wouldn't be getting a bratty little brother to drive him crazy and pester him all the time, but the sudden upheaval in Itachi's family had left him without words again, and Itachi only shrugged and continued to throw shuriken, all of them landing clustered at the center of the targets. He was sorry, but he didn't know how to say it; he had wanted to feel that fragile chakra system get bigger and stronger and become a whole baby who had clean hands and clean dark eyes that would never see a war, but there wasn't a baby anymore, and Itachi couldn't do anything about it.

In a strange way the attack of the Kyuubi had fixed his family, even though the entire clan had to move because of the damage to their old neighborhood. Itachi and his parents received commendations for their efforts to protect civilians from the demon fox, and his mother found a new energy, or rediscovered an old one. She rejoined the ranks of the active shinobi after Itachi went to the academy, and even tried to adopt one of the orphaned children from the attack, a baby boy named Uzumaki Naruto. Both the village council and the rest of the clan had opposed it for some reason, so she hadn't been allowed to formally adopt him, but Mikoto had never been someone who would let bureaucracy or other Uchiha stand in her way, and Naruto had become a near-constant fixture in the house as soon as he was old enough to walk: eating there whenever he couldn't badger someone into buying him ramen, sleeping in one of the spare rooms as often as in his own apartment, latching on to Itachi and treating him like an older brother. At first Fugaku hadn't been pleased by the addition to the household, but Naruto had eventually won him over by the peculiar method of painting giant Uchiha fans all over the Hokage monument. Twice.

Itachi was very fond of Naruto - his shining blue eyes, his endless energy, his bright grin and playful nature - but Naruto was not his little brother.

Itachi didn't have a little brother.

He never had.

* * *

Of course Itachi had a little brother.

He had been born after the Third Shinobi War, small and fat and dark-haired, and Itachi had loved him at once, fiercely and wordlessly. Itachi loved his tiny hands, too small and feeble to hold a weapon; Itachi loved how loudly he cried, unafraid of giving away his position or attracting an enemy's attention. He could spend hours just letting his brother wave chubby fingers at him and make little noises and pull on his hair while their mother watched them and smiled, and later she would comb the tangles out of Itachi's hair and tell him how proud she was of him for looking after his brother so well.

When the Kyuubi attacked Itachi couldn't go help anyone, because he had to take care of his brother. He hid under the house with his brother wailing furiously in his arms while the Kyuubi's poisonous chakra swept over the village; he wanted to scream almost as much as his brother, but he had learned better in the war, and so he tried to keep his brother quiet instead, humming and whispering extravagant promises and hoping that their parents would be all right. He didn't know where they had gone, but he was sure they were fighting the Kyuubi, because what else would they do?

In the end the Uchiha district was barely touched by the attack, but the clan had to move to a new neighborhood anyway. His parents and the rest of the clan were furious, but Itachi didn't mind. He liked their new house, and he loved that his little brother was getting big enough to crawl around and explore it; Itachi loved following him around the new house to keep him from falling into trouble or running into walls and teaching him to say _father_, _mother_, _niisan_. Itachi loved it when his brother took his first step upright, when he began to make real words instead of noises, when he smiled a nearly toothless smile up at Itachi and begged to play.

Itachi didn't love it when his father gave him a set of blunted kunai and told him to show his little brother how to hold them, but he did as he was told.

Itachi loved watching his brother get bigger and stronger and determined to be as great as Itachi, but Itachi didn't have much time for looking after him; he spent a year at the academy before graduating, and then he was a shinobi, with an adult's responsibilities and missions every day. He couldn't spend much time teaching his little brother to throw shuriken or memorize seals, and he also couldn't spend time playing games with him or helping him learn to read. It didn't make any difference in Itachi's feelings, but he hated to see his brother's disappointment when Itachi had to keep telling him _maybe next time_.

The night after Itachi received his chuunin vest, his little brother found him at the bathroom sink, staring at his dry hands. "Niisan? Is something wrong?"

Itachi didn't turn the water on. "Nothing's wrong," he said. "I'm fine." He turned away from the sink and leaned over to flick his fingers against his brother's forehead. "Go back to bed, and tomorrow we can go visit Grandmother Cat together. I promise."

"Really? Awesome!"

Itachi loved his little brother.

When Shimura Danzo approached him after the council meeting that had condemned the Uchiha, Itachi knew that he loved his little brother too much. It was too late for him to do anything else.

He didn't mind if his little brother hated him. His little brother was perfect and pure and his hands were clean, and what was Itachi? A liar and a murderer. A failed son. An imperfect Uchiha who couldn't hate but could kill half of his clan even so, could kill every person he loved but one. It was all right for his brother to hate him, to chase after him, to kill him.

He would always love his little brother -


	5. jump off the end

**jump off the end**

"Sasuke?"

The name he had never spoken was heavy and familiar in his mouth.

"_Now_ you remember me," the stranger said, still struggling to break Itachi's grip. "Go ahead and take my eyes if you need them so badly, I'll kill you when I'm blind if I have to -"

"I don't want your eyes," Itachi said (_there had to be an excuse_) (and he wasn't going to think about it right now, he had a mission). "Just calm down, please - I'm not sure what's going on here, but I don't know you. I've never met you before. Is that your name? Sasuke?"

"This isn't _funny_, Itachi!" The stranger - Sasuke - managed to wrench one hand free, and Itachi let the other one go and stepped back, ready to pull a kunai if necessary. Sasuke didn't reach for his sword; he stood still, breathing hard and glaring, and said, "I don't know why you're doing this, but when the illusion breaks I'll -"

"Niisan! Hey, Itachi-niisan, are you okay?"

Not _now_. "Naruto-kun, I told you to stay out of sight."

"Naruto?" Sasuke's glare softened a little as he looked past Itachi, but Itachi couldn't risk taking his eyes off Sasuke to look for Naruto. "What are _you_ doing here? You're supposed to be - you should be taller." He laughed harshly. "What, did you use too many shadow clones and turn back into a kid?"

"Dude, you're _weird_," Naruto said, and he suddenly appeared at Itachi's side. "Anyway, Niisan, you okay? I heard yelling and I called Aunt Mikoto and she said she was gonna send someone, but I'm already here so I figured -"

"Don't talk to him like that!" Sasuke yelled, with impressive energy considering that he was swaying on his feet. "Since when are you his friend? He tried to kidnap you, dumbass! You _know_ what he's done!"

"Huh? Uh - when did I get kidnapped?"

"Please go back to the house, Naruto-kun," Itachi said, "you really shouldn't be here. Sasuke-san, if you'll come with me, we can -"

"_Sasuke-san_?"

The radio in Naruto's hand hissed. "Itachi? Are you there? Please answer me, and tell Naruto to get back here right now or he's going to be in deep trouble!"

"Mother?" Sasuke's legs finally gave out and left him kneeling in dead leaves and thin grass, staring at the radio. "But she's dead. They're all dead. It was just us... That was reality."

Itachi took the radio from Naruto and spoke into it. "Everything's under control." (_This wasn't in the plan._) "Our guest is somewhat confused, once he's calmer I'll take him to the hospital."

"Well, if you're sure... I just don't want you taking too many chances. Oh, I've sent -"

"You _killed_ her."

"Naruto, go home," Itachi said. "That's an order from your temporary captain. And take the radio in case you run into trouble."

"Aww, man, just when things were gettin' good... Hey, weird guy!" Naruto waved at Sasuke. "Feel better soon, okay? I wanna talk again and find out how you know Niisan and me and stuff, yanno, so don't die or anything!"

He ran off with the radio just as Sasuke launched himself at Itachi again. Itachi vanished out of the way and grabbed Sasuke's right arm, twisting it up behind Sasuke's back, but Sasuke somehow tore himself out of the hold and drove his fist into Itachi's side, then dove for his fallen sword. Itachi caught him by his belt and pulled him away from the sword, and Sasuke turned and lashed out at Itachi's throat with a kunai that Itachi leaned back just in time to avoid. "You killed her!" Sasuke screamed. "You killed them all for being _weak_ and now you're using them to -"

"Whoa there, let's not get too hasty, huh?" and Shisui was suddenly between them, pulling Sasuke away from Itachi and twisting the kunai out of Sasuke's hand. Shisui's clothes and hair were singed and there was a bad burn along his right shoulder and arm, but he was alive and grinning and both of his eyes were in his face where they belonged. "Whoever you think got killed, why don't we talk it over first like reasonable shinobi?"

Sasuke stared at Shisui in disbelief. "But aren't you - you're Shisui. You're _dead_."

(_bloody eye sockets washed clean in the river_)

"You know, that's the second time someone's told me that tonight," Shisui said, "and I don't think I like hearing it any more now than I did the first time. If you promise to be good and stop trying to kill my friend here, I'll let you go and we can talk about -"

"He killed you! He killed you just to get stronger and now you're - you're -" Sasuke staggered and nearly fell, only held upright by Shisui's grip. "This isn't right. He only left me for my eyes but you're alive - my mother is alive... Are they all alive? Is everyone still alive?"

"Shisui, let him go," Itachi said. "Sasuke-san, I understand that you're confused, but -"

"What the hell is going on?" Sasuke said.

He collapsed.

* * *

Shisui caught Sasuke just as he pitched forward and carefully let Sasuke down to the ground. "Out cold," he said. "I can't believe he was alive, let alone yelling his head off at us - he's barely got the chakra to keep breathing."

Itachi knelt beside Sasuke and brushed his bangs aside. He could see the Uchiha blood in Sasuke's face when he looked, not just Uchiha but his own family: Mikoto's cheekbones and fine eyebrows, a jawline that would eventually firm into Fugaku's, Itachi's straight nose...

(_forgive me, Sasuke_)

His mind whirled around bloody memories of things that he'd never done, and he said, "Shisui, tell me what happened with the other target."

"Shouldn't we get this kid to the hospital first? He doesn't look good, and neither of us are exactly medics."

"Not yet," Itachi said. "He'll be all right for now, and I -" (_if I explain_) "- I want to talk to him before anyone else does, if he wakes up again."

Shisui shrugged his unburned shoulder. "All right," he said, "but you're coming up with your own excuses when the higher-ups get pissed. We can do some first aid, at least, I have some bandages and things. Maybe a soldier pill... Nah, the crash would kill him. Plain first aid it is - help me out here, my arm's kind of sore."

Itachi took the roll of bandages that Shisui handed him and began to dress the worst of Sasuke's injuries with mechanical thoroughness. He knew the cause of each one, but not the reason for them. "About the other target," he said.

"Right, yeah..." Shisui left Sasuke to Itachi and started wrapping up his own arm. "Well, like I said on the radio, the guy recognized me before I'd finished saying 'Nice night for a walk,' and I didn't get halfway through claiming I was an Inuzuka before he went after me and Kuromaru. He's got a sharingan eye, I don't know how, and he's good with it and fast as hell - even with my sharingan on I thought I was toast for a second, and then of all people Maito Gai showed up and distracted him. I don't know what Gai was doing out there at this time of night, but I'm telling you, I was never so glad to see green spandex in my _life_."

Itachi decided that tomorrow, he would find Maito Gai and offer him - something. Anything he wanted, for saving Shisui.

"Anyway, then Tsume-san showed up with a couple of ANBU she'd grabbed on the way," Shisui said, "and we all played tag for a few minutes - none of us could land a hit on him, Itachi. Nothing connected. It was like he wasn't there at all, except _his_ hits sure hurt... Then Kakashi-san and some other jounin Mikoto-san called jumped in and the target just vanished. Poof." He waved his left hand around in a vague gesture apparently meant to represent something disappearing. "Gone. I don't know if he stole the Fourth's techniques or what, but that guy can move. Oh, and Tsume-san slapped me in the head when I asked her if she kissed her dog with that mouth - she was cursing up a storm, it was beautiful - and told me to go home and tell your mom what happened, so I left them to see if they could find the guy's trail again. Mikoto-san told me you'd found your target and sent me out here, and you can figure out the rest."

Itachi finished bandaging a shallow but long cut on Sasuke's side.

"So," Shisui said, after a minute of silence, "find out anything about this one, besides the fact that he thinks you're the worst Uchiha since Madara himself?"

"Nothing that makes sense." Itachi didn't look up at Shisui. "He seems to know me, but I've never -"

(_I'm here to protect you, no matter what happens_)

"- never met him. He claimed that we were brothers."

"I can see the family resemblance," Shisui said, completely deadpan. "I mean, besides the fact that he looks like he might have gotten a decent night's sleep once in a while. And the screaming rage fits. And the chicken-butt hair. Otherwise? Total twins."

"Shisui, this isn't -" _Funny_, he almost said, but it was too much like Sasuke's earlier words. "This is a genuine problem. He thinks I want to steal his eyes, that I killed you, that I killed -"

(_to test my capacity_)

"- but I haven't - I would never -"

"Hey, whoa, calm down," Shisui said. He reached over Sasuke and clasped Itachi's shoulder. "I know all that, it's okay, stay calm - someone must have put him under an illusion or something. We'll take him to the hospital in a bit and let the professionals there figure it out, don't let it get to you."

Itachi shut his eyes. He didn't want to talk about it, but if he couldn't tell Shisui... "I'm not sure he's wrong."

"Okay, now I'm really getting confused."

"Since this started, I've been remembering things. Events that I know haven't happened. I keep thinking things, seeing images that aren't real, but they're similar to the things that Sasuke has said. I know his name when I've never seen him before, and -" Itachi took a deep breath in and forced himself to relax, trying to ignore the bright burn of Shisui's chakra across from him and concentrate on the faint energy left in Sasuke. Drained to the bone and scarcely there, but just enough for Itachi to sense; just like -

(that's going to be your little brother)

Itachi had always had an excellent memory.

"Itachi? Hey, you awake?"

"He is my brother," Itachi said, opening his eyes. "The one that wasn't born. I remember his chakra from before Mother went to the hospital; it's exactly the same."

For once Shisui didn't have a joking answer ready, and Itachi looked down at Sasuke, who remained unconscious, his chest barely moving as he breathed. _Everything unreal is real_, he thought, _and the reality is..._ His little brother who hadn't lived was as old as Itachi. Shisui who was sitting across from him had died. Something had gone wrong with the clan, with the entire village, and Itachi had made a bargain for Sasuke's life and -

"This isn't a police matter," Shisui said, and Itachi remembered blood leaking from his father's mouth onto the tatami floor. "Hell, this isn't even an ANBU matter. We have to take this straight to the Hokage, I don't think anyone else gets paid enough to deal with a situation like - like whatever this situation is."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure no one does," a new voice said.


	6. no one gets hurt

**no one gets hurt**

In an instant Itachi and Shisui were on their feet and back to back with Sasuke's body between them and weapons in their hands, both focused on the man in the long black coat and spiral-carved mask who was lounging on a tree branch above them.

The man waved. "Hi! Hope I'm not interrupting," he said, and something behind Itachi's eyes ached to lash out and burn and wipe the man out of existence.

"Oh, hey there!" Shisui said. "Welcome back to the party - I was starting to worry you'd left for good, and that'd be such a shame, you know?" His voice was bright and cheerful, but Itachi could hear the hard edge beneath it that meant he was no longer joking around.

"No, no way," the masked man said, flailing his arms wildly and nearly falling out of the tree, "I just had to go look some things up! It's been a really confusing night and all, haha, but now -" He bounced up and his movements changed, shifting into a deadly fluidity. "- I'm afraid I need to take Sasuke back."

Kunai flashed through the air as he vanished. Itachi knocked them away with shuriken as Shisui summoned a wall of earth around them that cracked under the force of a concentrated stream of fire; the masked man leaped over the wall, and Itachi drew his short sword and slashed through the man's neck in a single movement.

The sword passed through without resistance and the man crashed into Itachi, laughing in his face. "Oops, missed me!"

He was gone before Itachi could grab him. Itachi caught his balance and turned, sheathing the sword to free his hand for seals. Shisui had engaged the masked man, driving him away from Sasuke with his own sword, but the stranger was laughing again as if it were a game and spinning around with Shisui's strikes.

Itachi formed a seal and Shisui's cracked wall collapsed onto the masked man; the man appeared balancing at the top of the heaped earth and blew a fountain of fire down at the three of them. Shisui covered Sasuke as Itachi's fingers flickered and water arched above them, breaking the fire's attack. "You know," Shisui shouted over the hiss of steam, "this would be way easier if one of us were a Hyuuga! Or if we'd taken the kid to the hospital like I said we should do."

"Then we would be fighting in the hospital," Itachi said, turning the water barrier into a dragon that forced the masked man back up into the trees. "I believe the medics don't look very kindly on that."

"Oh, ruin every good idea I have with your logic, why don't you?" Two giant shuriken hurtled out of the woods and Shisui caught them and sent them back, one with an exploding tag attached. "I guess we'll just have to do things the hard way." He stepped back from Sasuke and made two seals as Itachi deflected a hail of smaller shuriken, and an earthen dome covered Sasuke's still form. Without exchanging more than a glance the two split up: Itachi went directly after the masked man's chakra, concealed among the tree-tops, and Shisui faded into the shadows among the trunks.

Itachi found the masked man fussing with a string of tagged kunai, apparently preoccupied. A thrown shuriken drew his attention to one side and Itachi attacked from the other, then vanished in a cloud of shrieking crows when the tagged kunai exploded. Safe in another tree, Itachi watched the masked man return to the mound of earth over Sasuke - and begin to dig into the air next into it.

No one in Konoha was better than Shisui at illusions.

Itachi jumped to the ground and Shisui reappeared beside him; they moved in silent unison to flank the oblivious masked man, and Itachi noted that Shisui's sharingan had squared and sharpened into the pattern of his mangekyou. Shisui stepped around the masked man to look into the single eyehole and a coughing fit tore into Itachi, sending him to his knees and gasping for breath between each hoarse cough.

(_ought to take better care of yourself, Itachi-san_)

"Hey, are you okay?" Shisui reached over to rub his back. "You'd better -"

"You really were talented, huh," the masked man said, and Itachi looked up to see the sharingan eye behind the mask a moment before the man's foot lashed out and kicked him in the stomach, knocking what little air he had left out of him.

For a minute Itachi fought just to breathe; when the coughing weakened sufficiently he made it to his feet and saw Shisui and the masked man fighting in the trees, exchanging fireballs and kunai. Itachi breathed shallowly between coughs, letting the fit die naturally, and when it was done he drew his short sword again to rejoin the fight.

Steel slid into his back, and he looked down to see the bloody tip of a katana emerging from his side.

"Got you," Sasuke hissed.

* * *

_Don't pull it out_, Itachi thought with dim desperation, _the bleeding_... But Sasuke drew the sword out and Itachi fell forward onto the ground, his own sword dropping from his grip. He tried to cover the wound with his hands, summoning his chakra, but he only knew the simplest medical techniques, nothing adequate for healing a serious injury.

"You shouldn't have wasted your time on this illusion," Sasuke said, eerily calm. "It just gave me another chance to defeat you."

Itachi had watched medics at work; he should be able to duplicate their skills, at least enough to slow the bleeding. He managed to turn over and saw Sasuke standing over him with a strangely peaceful expression and the sword hovering above Itachi's neck. "- not an illusion," Itachi said, his voice faint and rough, "Sasuke, listen to me -"

(_forgive me_)

(_hate me_)

Something exploded high in the trees, but Sasuke's focus didn't waver. "No," he said. "I'm through listening to you. After this - after this, I can finally -"

Shisui jumped out of the ground behind Sasuke and yanked the sword out of his hand. "You ungrateful son of a bitch! I should - oh fuck, Itachi, don't move, okay?"

"But I just saved you," Sasuke said, "I'm saving you, and Mother and Father, and the whole clan - you'll understand when -"

"Saved me from what, my best friend helping me?" Shisui grabbed Sasuke's shoulder and shoved him to the ground, then crouched by Itachi and reached for his first aid kit. "Hang in there, I'm gonna get that masked bastard and then we're going straight to the hospital, so don't even think about passing out on me, Ita-chan, got it?"

"Please - stop calling me that."

"I don't understand, Itachi," Sasuke said, his voice beginning to crack. "Why can't I break this? Why would he help you? Why would Naruto take your side? Why would you make an illusion like this, acting like you don't know me - pretending that you're not - I don't understand."

"Well, maybe if you'd stop trying to kill him one of us could explain!" Shisui hastily wrapped a bandage around the two wads of cloth he had slapped over the holes in Itachi's side and back, then tied it off. "Both of you stay put, I'll be right -"

The masked man appeared behind Sasuke with a kunai in his hand and Itachi moved without thought. He knocked Shisui aside with one arm and took hold of Sasuke and threw him out of the way as the masked man's kunai stabbed through the air and into Itachi's left shoulder. Shisui leaped over Itachi, but his kick passed through the masked man's head and he landed on the man's other side, then vanished out of Itachi's line of sight along with the masked man.

Itachi looked for Sasuke and saw him sitting awkwardly sprawled against a tree trunk, staring wild-eyed at Itachi. "What are you doing?" Sasuke said. "Trying to protect me, acting like you're still - which one of you is real? Why won't you just give up and _die_?"

Itachi got to his feet again with some effort, ignoring the blood beginning to soak through Shisui's makeshift bandage (_have to explain_). "Listen to me," he said, "what happened - what I did -" Another fit of coughing racked him and he bent over, covering his mouth with one hand.

(_including the innocent children_)

(_testing my capacity_)

(_I can let your younger brother live_)

"I made my own decisions," Itachi said, taking a step towards Sasuke. "It was my choice - don't listen to that man, to anyone else - you have to -" Another harsh cough, and he nearly fell over. "- to choose your own path. Don't let him -"

A heavy weight slammed into Itachi's back and knocked him down. Blackness covered his vision for a moment; when it cleared Shisui's feet were dangling in front of his eyes, swinging as he struggled to break the masked man's grip on his throat. "I've always wanted one of your eyes," the man said casually, "but you wouldn't believe what I'd have to do to get one at home. This is going to make my life _so_ much easier."

"Shisui," Itachi breathed, struggling to get up, and Sasuke said, "Whoever the hell you are, leave him - stop it! Stop! Shisui!"

The man's gloved fingers dug into Shisui's left eye, and Shisui snarled a curse. The masked man removed his fingers, trailing drops of blood, and tossed Shisui aside as he pulled a clear tube out of his sleeve. "I wonder just what I can do with this," he said, slipping a dripping red ball into the tube. "Something fun, I'm sure - maybe I'll -"

"You _bastard_!" Sasuke scrambled up and launched himself at the masked man, but the man warped and disappeared as Sasuke reached him, and Sasuke crashed into Itachi instead with an audible _crack_ from Itachi's ribs.

The masked man reappeared above them, the tube with Shisui's eye nowhere in sight. "Such a troublesome brat," he said; he shrugged, holding his hands out, and two kunai wrapped in multiple exploding tags appeared in his palms. "With this eye, I wonder - I might not even need him anymore."

He flipped the kunai point-down and drove them into the ground next to Itachi and Sasuke.

"Let's see, shall we?" he said.

He vanished as Itachi threw himself over Sasuke, and the tags went off.

* * *

Itachi woke in darkness, curled up on his side with a massive dull pain spreading across his back and Sasuke's face staring blankly across the ground at him.

(_no, he can't be_)

Sasuke blinked, and Itachi could breathe. "You did it again," Sasuke said. His voice was soft and tired and somehow broken. "You protected me again, even when I - after everything you did - I don't _understand_, Itachi."

It took more effort than Itachi would have thought to raise his left hand and bring it up to Sasuke's forehead, resting the first two fingers against the ash-smeared skin there. There was something he needed to say; it was just on the tip of his tongue.

(_maybe next time_)

"Forgive me," Itachi said, smiling. "This is it."

"Niisan," Sasuke said. "I don't understand..." His eyes slipped shut, but Itachi could see him breathing. It would be all right. Sasuke was safe. He could rest, and someone would find them soon and take care of Sasuke...

"You know," the masked man said from somewhere behind Itachi, "you've always made me sick."

Itachi tried to roll away and found he couldn't move; a heavy weight on his side had him pinned down.

"Well, maybe not when you were little," the man continued. "I was busy with my own problems back then, I wasn't really paying much attention to anything else. But later? _Wow_. Murdering for peace, that's just the shinobi way, but what kind of monster would torture their own brother and think that they were _protecting_ him? Who would turn a nice, normal kid into an obsessive hate-filled little monster willing to throw away anyone who got close to him just for a chance at revenge and call that love? I mean, I've killed lots of people and I'm going to start a war to put the whole world under my control that will kill thousands more, but I'm not doing it because I _love_ any of them."

A gloved hand reached past Itachi and patted Sasuke on the cheek. "Poor kid," the masked man said. "You never even gave him a chance. Neither will I, but then, I've never made him any promises otherwise, either."

"I didn't," Itachi said, "I never meant - that wasn't -"

(_foolish little brother_)

(_- will be my new light!_)

(_run, and cling to life_)

"- I'm not the one who did those things - wasn't real -"

"Oh, I know that," the man said. Something hard dug into the wound in Itachi's side and Itachi couldn't stop himself from crying out. "I can see that things turned out differently here and you're as innocent as the newly fallen snow or whatever. I just wanted you to know what kind of person you really are, when you get right down to it - though it looks like you've got a pretty good idea already. A present from your other self, I guess, since he didn't make it over in person."

The weight on Itachi's side lifted, and the masked man stepped over him, crouched, and hefted Sasuke onto one shoulder. "Anyway, I'm pretty sure I figured out how we got here," he said brightly, "so now I'm going to take us back - for the record, if you live through this, never use Kamui to jump into a fight with someone else's Susano'o. You could end up anywhere. Oh, I was just kidding earlier - I've got big plans for your precious baby brother, you know, and I can't wait to see how this little trip is going to affect them. Plus one of Shisui's eyes for my very own - talk about great souvenirs! Too bad I didn't have time to go find myself and see what I'm up to here, but man, I bet it's going to be really exciting when you meet me again... Maybe I'll have to figure out a way to come back, just to watch the fireworks. Ah, I'd better hurry, though - I don't want anyone interfering too much or getting any bright ideas at home, after all."

He stood up and turned away, and Itachi reached out and caught hold of his long coat. "Please -"

"Eh?" The man half-turned and looked back over his empty shoulder.

"Don't take Sasuke..." Itachi struggled to breathe as a fresh coughing fit seized his lungs. "Let him stay - please - I'll take care of him this time, I won't - don't take him..."

The man paused for a moment, considering; then he kicked Itachi's hand away. "Seriously," he said, "I'm going to be sick," and as he stepped forward he disappeared into the air with Sasuke.

(_forgive me_)

Itachi blacked out.


	7. clear and innocent

**clear and innocent**

_Thump._

He managed to open his eyes, but it took considerably more of his energy than it should have. He was lying on his side in a bed; there were white walls around him, a single large window, and two blurry figures in black and orange at the bed's foot, arguing. "- be more careful, Naruto, honestly, what if it had been something fragile?"

"I didn't mean to drop 'em, yanno, they just - hey! Niisan's up!"

"Itachi!"

He blinked, and the larger of the figures approached and resolved into Mikoto, who leaned over him. "Oh, thank goodness you're awake," she said. "It's been two days, we were _frantic_ - Naruto, run and get Shisui - you'd nearly bled out when the patrol found the two of you."

Only two. "Sasuke," Itachi said with some difficulty; his throat was dry and rough. "What about Sasuke?"

"There was no one else," Mikoto said, sitting next to the bed and gently brushing Itachi's bangs out of his face. "Just you and Shisui, both of you out cold. Most of the Inuzuka have been out looking for whoever attacked you, along with anyone else with half-decent tracking skills, but there's been no trace of them."

Itachi let his eyes close, a dull ache in his heart despite the fading immediacy of his alternate memories. Not even the most skilled tracker would be able to find Sasuke or the masked man, wherever they had gone.

"Was that the injured one's name? Sasuke?"

He nodded.

"How funny," his mother said thoughtfully. "If it had been a boy, I would have named - oh, that's old history, now. Strange, though."

Itachi couldn't imagine telling her how strange. He couldn't imagine telling anyone, although he would have to, eventually; the Hokage would require a full report of the events. He opened his eyes again and watched his mother fuss with the sheets on the bed. "Your father should be back this evening," she said, "we've been trading off shifts while you were sleeping so one of us could always be here. Don't let him fool you if he starts yelling about letting down the clan name, he's just been so stressed - for a moment there I thought he'd kill Tsume for leaving you on your own, and he's already demoted Yashiro-san for concealing -"

"Niisan, I'm back!" Naruto burst through the door and flung himself onto Itachi, sending jolts of pain through Itachi's side and ribs. "Dude, I've been super worried! I brought you some oranges and they're fine even if I kinda dropped them, do you want one? Was it that weird Sasuke guy that hurt you? I'm totally gonna find him and beat him up, just you wait!"

"You mean you're going to wait your turn like a good kid till I'm done, little buddy," Shisui said, coming through the door behind Naruto. "All the grief he put us through, I'd say we deserve first crack."

Itachi couldn't look away from the bandage wrapped around Shisui's head and covering his left eye. "Shisui..."

"Oh, don't stare like that, you'll make me blush," Shisui said. He smiled a little crookedly and deftly pulled Naruto off of Itachi. "It's not that big a deal - guess I'll have to start taking fashion tips from Kakashi-san, though."

"As long as you don't pick up his reading habits," Mikoto said severely, but she reached up to smooth down Shisui's wavy hair.

"You should've let me stay and help," said Naruto. "I could've been useful, yanno, I'd've been like - punch! Switch! Boom! And saved the day!" He waved his arms around wildly. "That's what I wanted to do, but no, you had to make me go home instead and now - now you're all - it's not _fair_!"

Itachi sat up carefully and started to reach out to flick his fingers against Naruto's forehead, then stopped himself and put his hand on Naruto's shoulder. "You did the right thing by listening to me," he said. "If you had been hurt, too, how do you think Shisui and I would feel?"

"Pretty damn amazed," Shisui muttered, "considering - ow! Itachi, call off your mom, I'm a wounded man here."

"But I could've _helped_," Naruto insisted, "I can fight great, who cares about my grades?"

"You -"

(_foolish little brother_)

Itachi shuddered. He took a deep breath, but the coughing he expected didn't come; instead he felt tears collecting in his eyes and hid them with his hands.

"Niisan? You okay?"

(_hate me_)

"Itachi's probably still very tired, Naruto," he heard his mother say. "We should let him get some more rest - why don't we go get some ramen and then we'll come back and see how he's doing later?"

"Wait," Itachi said, "Naruto, come here," and when Naruto came back to the side of the bed Itachi leaned over and put one arm around him, resting his forehead against Naruto's. "I'll protect you," he said. "I'll always protect you -"

(_no matter what happens_)

(never even gave him a chance)

"- within - within reasonable limits."

"Uh, sure," Naruto said, wiggling slightly. "Sounds like a good deal - um, could you let go now, though? I'm not a _baby_, yanno, and if you want me to sneak you some ramen you can just say so..."

"I'm sorry." Itachi let him go and made the effort to smile. "I'd like some ramen, if you're sure you can get it past the medics without being caught."

Mikoto sighed, but Naruto grinned and said, "Totally, I'm awesome at sneaking! See you later, Niisan!"

Itachi held his smile until his mother and Naruto were gone, and then he covered his face again.

He heard Shisui sit next to the bed. "Hey, don't take it too hard," Shisui said. He put his arm around Itachi's shaking shoulders. "You did everything you could, but this was one weird case. I promise, if either of those two turn up again we'll - well - if they turn up again, we'll think of something. Right?"

(Niisan, I don't understand.)

"I failed him," Itachi said, tears slipping through his fingers. "I meant to protect him, but it went wrong - I killed my parents, I hurt him, I did all of those terrible things and I still failed -"

"Itachi, that wasn't _you_. That was some bizarre clone version of you from another world or something, who knows what else was going on there? It doesn't count."

(what you really are)

"It counts," said Itachi.

Shisui didn't argue with him any further; he kept his arm around Itachi and they sat in silence together until Shisui said, "Think of it this way - now you know what not to do if your parents decide they ought to give Naruto a little brother."

Itachi's laugh was choked but genuine. "It isn't funny..."

"Sure it is," Shisui said. "Just give it some time, and we'll see who's laughing if that masked man decides to mess with either of us again." He squeezed Itachi's shoulder and then let go. "So - you going to share that ramen Naruto's bringing back for us, or do I have to fight you for it?"

"You can have it."


	8. coda

**coda**

The cold rain running down his face woke Sasuke. He was lying flat on his back, and he opened his eyes to see dark grey clouds above him, then had to squint to keep the rain out of his eyes. Damn rain - it hadn't been raining when -

He turned his head and saw Itachi collapsed next to him.

Sasuke didn't even have the strength to be startled; he could only watch Itachi, and after a moment he realized Itachi wasn't breathing. _I did it_, he thought, but the thought had no weight. Had he really killed this Itachi, or only the other one? Hadn't half the work been done by the masked man and that other Itachi's own foolish actions? Had he even killed the right Itachi?

(_trying to help you_)

There were trails of blood at the corners of Itachi's mouth, but the rain was gradually washing them away. Sasuke could see the differences between the two now - the deeper lines under this Itachi's eyes, the thinner cheeks, other traces of illness and stress - but this one had the exact same smile as the other still on his face, as if he'd won their fight instead of dying before he could take Sasuke's eyes.

(_this is it_)

Sasuke wanted to feel avenged, triumphant, free. All he felt was tired.

He closed his eyes again, only to hear footsteps and urgent whispering, then a deep, solemn voice. "Sasuke? Are you all right?"

"Of course he's all right, you great big idiot! Like he'd lose!" Warm but bony fingers prodded at his chest. "Sasuke! Sasukeeeeee! Do you need a bite?"

"Shut up," he said. "No, I'm just - get _off_, Karin." The fingers disappeared, and Sasuke opened his eyes and saw Karin and Juugo hovering over him. "Where's Suigetsu?"

Karin rolled her eyes. "Who cares? Still screwing around fighting with that giant blue man, probably. Let's just ditch him already and go somewhere nice and private where you can rest up, and I'll take _such_ good care of you - Juugo, you pick him -"

"No." Sasuke pushed himself upright. "We'll go collect Suigetsu first. I can walk. Juugo, carry his body."

"All right."

"Uh, fine, if you're sure," Karin said, helping Sasuke stand as Juugo bent over and lifted Itachi's body, "but what do you want to take _that_ along for?"

(hate me)

(_forgive me_)

"He's my brother," Sasuke said. He reached out and closed Itachi's blind eyes, his hand shaking slightly. "I should give him a funeral, at least. To finish it."

"Right, and - what do we do after that?"

Half of his life had been focused on a single moment of time, and that moment was past; it was too easy for his mind to go back to it, circling around it endlessly, tearing it apart for every scrap of possible meaning. What had he considered doing after that one point? Going back to Konoha and the idiots there who wouldn't give up on him? Taking over Sound? Living on the run, traveling through the shinobi countries as a missing-nin? He'd never thought about any of it. There had only been Itachi, standing in the way of every possible future, and Itachi was dead.

(_choose your own path_)

"I don't know," Sasuke said. "We'll figure something out."

* * *

In a distant forest of Earth Country, a man in a cracked orange mask stared one-eyed at the giant boulder he had crawled out from under and said, "Okay, this technique is just _weird_."

**fin.**

* * *

**Author's Note:** _And that's that! I hope you've all enjoyed this fic - gigantic thanks to everyone who's read and commented (or just read, that's cool too)! If you have any lingering questions, I'll be happy to answer them to the best of my ability and quit dancing around hinting about spoilers.__ Thank you again!_**  
**


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